Go Home Wayne LaPierre, You’re Drunk

National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre broke his organization’s silence since last week’s atrocity at Sandy Hook Elementary by giving a press conferencethis morning. The press conference’s tone was rambling at times and it appeared to generally lack focus. The NRA gave some reasons they thought that there were mass shootings

There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and stows violence against its own people. Through vicious, violent video games with names like “Bullet Storm,” “Grand Theft Auto,” “Mortal Combat,” and “Splatterhouse.”

LaPierre also went on to blame violent movies and music videos as well. LaPierre also appeared to claim that there was a media conspiracy to cover up the role of violent media by blaming gun owners.

The problem with blaming violent video games for crime is that its simply not true as is pointed in this piece in the National Review. Also, is the message that we need to gut the First Amendment to save the Second Amendment the right message we need to send right now?

LaPierre unfortunately wasn’t finished with his Joe Biden impersonation. He had some suggestions for improving school security.

I call on Congress today, to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation. And, to do it now to make sure that blanket safety is in place when our kids return to school in January.

First question, why is this a Federal responsibility? I thought conservatives were against a Federal role in education. Second question, where is the money going to come since we’re running deficits of over $1 trillion? Thirdly, is turning our schools into prisons the best use of our resources?

Granted, the NRA’s current proposal on this topic utilizes retired police and military that are trained by the NRA, but eventually the Federal government, given its track record on these types of programs, will likely take it over.

Each local school district needs to come up with their own plan to best suit their own needs. The decision to have armed police in a school needs to be up to each community and local school district and they should pay the cost if they choose to go that route. Education is either entirely a state and local responsibility or its not. LaPierre’s approach appears to be doing for schools what the TSA has done for airport security.

Finally, I was struck by these comments in the LaPierre presser.

How can we possibly even guess how many, given our nation’s refusal to create an active national database of the mentally ill?

Quick poll of my readers, raise your hands if you trust this current administration with any database. Given that just about everything these days can be classified as a “mental illness”, this proposal seems to be a genuine threat to the liberty of all Americans. Especially since many if not most people suffering from mental illness pose no threat to others.

Unfortunately, LaPierre’s clown act distracted from his good points about the ignorance of the media about firearms and the refusal of our so-called Attorney General and gun dealer to Mexican drug cartels, Eric Holder, to enforce the gun laws currently on the books. The press conference was a devastating own goal that hurt the cause of the Second Amendment. If we are going to fight new gun bans in part based on a freedom argument, we need to be in support for all the Bill of Rights, not just a particular one. We need to ditch the embarrassing and anti-freedom NRA and get behind other organizations that fight for our right to keep and bear arms.